Salt Line

SCENE START

INT. LIVING ROOM – NIGHT

The room is dimly lit. THE CHARACTER (20s) sits alone. They aren’t crying; they are past that. They are just tired. They speak to the empty space in front of them, or perhaps to a glass of water on the table.

<center>CHARACTER</center>

> (quietly, a realization)

> I don’t talk about it much anymore.

>

> (a beat)

> Most people just… nod. Or change the subject. They don’t really want to know. But I remember.

>

> (their eyes focus on something distant)

> I remember the ash in the air, how it stuck to my lashes. The taste of smoke in my throat, sharp and metallic, like blood.

>

> I remember watching him run into the flames like it was nothing. Like he didn’t just promise me he’d come home.

>

> And I waited.

>

> God, I waited. Every second felt like a year, and every crackle of the radio could have been his last breath.

>

> (a sharp intake of breath)

> Then the silence. That’s what I’ll never forget. Not the fire. Not the heat. But the moment everything went still—like the world itself exhaled and took him with it.

>

> And now people say things like, “Time heals,” or “He died a hero,” but they don’t know how the smoke stayed.

>

> How I still smell it in my sheets some nights. How sometimes I wake up choking on air that isn’t burning—but feels like it should be.

>

> They don’t know how I walk through this world holding a name like a wound. A name no one says out loud anymore.

>

> (a faint, sad smile)

> But I do. I say it every night, even if he never answers.

FADE OUT.